Christine had a busy month in March teaching iconography at our home church in Sarasota, Church of the Redeemer and also at the Union Theological Seminary in NYC. She is also getting ready to teach another Icon class at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico next week. She delivered a beautiful icon commissioned by one of her former students in Miami, a wonderful Icon of Mary Magdalen and Christ. Recently there appears to be an understanding within the church body, that the significance of Mary Magdalene and her ministry towards Christ, as well as to the very early church, has not been fully appreciated. [Mark 16: 14] One of our fun days was a visit to the Dali museum in St Petersburg with friends. There was lots to see of course, but one of the outside displays was a Golden Spiral, which is used extensively in iconography and sacred geometry.

Michael’s News

Michael is slowly finding his way as a Chaplain for a retirement community which has lots of opportunity for praying one on one and also preaching and teaching. He, also, had a quick trip to New York to photograph an apartment which overlooked the Hudson River. The owners were vacating the apartment after thirty years and wanted a record of it.

He has a short story about what happened after doing a hospital visitation recently. He finished his hospital visit and returned to his car. Quite close by to where he had parked was a man sitting on a tire barrier under a shade tree. He was talking to someone who appeared to be just someone in passing. After a while he heard what the conversation was about, that the man’s father was in the hospital and apparently deteriorating fast.

After a while he felt God nudge him to go over and see if he could help the man. There was a long conversation, mostly the man talking and Michael just listening. Eventually Michael asked if he could pray for him and did so and then returned home.

About two hours later, he had a call from the hospital to return at that man’s request. Michael had been wearing a hospital Chaplain’s ID, earlier and they were asking for him specifically. So he returned and went to the room where the man and his father were. He prayed for them both separately and then talked and prayed with his mother and sister who were also at the hospital. Then waited to see how if he might help further. After a while the man came out of the father’s room and asked for Michael’s phone number and said he would be in touch if things developed. He then announced that the whole family was agnostic, but he recently learned his father had begun to pray when traveling to some of his medical appointments.

Hearing From God

Sometimes, it is strange how God works, but now Michael believes that God had heard his prayers while going to those doctors’ visits and somehow God got one of His own family to represent Him at a vital moment in that family’s life.

At the time Michael came away wondering, why was he asked to go back to the hospital if they were all agnostic? Why would they allow him to pray for them, each one separately? Maybe, just maybe, at that late hour, they realized they would be called upon to account for their lives before God.

As indeed we all shall. Whether we are cognizant that there will be an accounting before God or not. Even if we stand proudly as Christian, Agnostic, Republican or Democrat, we shall all be accountable before God.

Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one to whom we are accountable.

Somehow February always comes to an abrupt end, I keep expecting there to be a few more days in the month, so that is my apology for this coming a day later than I had hoped.

We celebrated their 25thwedding anniversary with a dolphin watching boat trip. Part of the cruise led past Old Cortez village, which apparently is the only surviving active fishing community in Florida.

Christine taught an introduction to iconography at St Peter and Paul Apostles Catholic Church to a group of women which is a new venue for her. She has a busy month coming up with teaching in Sarasota, New York City and Ghost Ranch, NM. She also had a flying visit to St Thomas’ Parish, in Upper Marlboro, MD, to deliver and attend the blessing of an icon she had written of Pauli Murray, a former member of that parish, who was an American civil rights advocate, feminist, lawyer and ordained priest. Christine has more commissions coming in which is so exciting and her book ‘Eyes of Fire’, continues to gather great comments and reviews as more people get the opportunity to read it. One of Christine’s recent students just got back to her saying she wished she had read the book before taking the class and she could have had a deeper understanding of how significant iconography is.

This has been an exciting month with my starting the new position of Chaplain at Freedom Village, in Bradenton. It’s a senior living community close by Blake hospital where I also volunteer as a Chaplain.

This new job carries a broad job description including preaching and leading Sunday Vespers service, Bible study teaching, coordinating and conducting memorial services, hospital visitations and getting to know a community of about 900 people.

There’s lots of opportunity to pray for people which I enjoy tremendously.

Sadly, some of the situations people face are heart rendering and all one can do is be present with them in silent prayer. Some of the more emotional experiences are for sons and daughters, faced with decisions about whether it is time to abstain from further medical treatment for their parents and allow them to pass over.

In a senior community many are facing end of life situations and those with a faith in God have so much more peace through the hard times. This community has a great spirit and many live very full and positive lives for many years. Seniors are though, facing very real difficulties as the body slowly or sometimes suddenly start to fail. The fact is getting old is not easy, in fact it can be a very challenging time of life, when we no longer have the physical resources to face challenges, we need the emotional and spiritual strength to do so.

Visit the Elderly

Loneliness is a killer. That is true all through our lives, but it is especially so in old age. Memories of delivering, ‘meals on wheels’ to shut-ins in rural New York gave me the full experience of old people living alone and slowly loosing any contact with the outside world except through the television set which played constantly day or night. As our society has become more mobile the support from extended family in our later days is often not a possibility. The children have moved out of state for work or education and their own families keep them fully occupied.

It is not a surprise that James talks about the need to not forget the elderly or orphans as we practice our different streams of Godly worship, James 1:27,

‘Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.’

Please let us know how we can pray for you and also hold us up as we go through these transitions in our lives.

We love hearing from you, and look forward to all that God is going to do in this new season in our lives!

The mission of The Fra Angelico Institute for Sacred Art is to deepen the prayer life of Western Rite Catholics by evangelizing the truth, goodness, and beauty of God through education and the prayerful creation of sacred art.